hackSuperHeroes
by BlackroseCo
Summary: When a hacker screws up a pvp battle in "The World", 3 people are suddenly changed into their video game characters. Some genderbending. Happens before .hack/sign.


Max looked at his watch as he ran home from his day of college classes. His thoughts were on one thing, "The World". He had received the game from some from some friends of his that were currently staying in Japan. At first Max couldn't figure out how to get the game to work from such a long distance away, but after some trial and error and faster internet connection, he finally had everything set up to play the game. He had entered the game as a complete newb, and even after a few months of playing he still was. He still couldn't figure out all of the complexities that came along with his wavemaster character. Even though he had gotten his character up to level 72, he had only been able to get that far on pure luck. If it wasn't for one of his friends over in Japan stepping in and explaining how much of a newb he really was being. After that, his level had skyrocketed and had been able to make quite a name for his character.

When Max got home, he dashed into his room, fired up his computer and changed into some comfortable clothes. As soon as his computer was ready, he logged on to "The World" checked through the BBC, and launched the game.

A few seconds later he was in Mac Anu, watching the moon play off of the rippling waves of the many canals that meandered through the large root town. He checked his inventory, and noticed he had a few quest items that needed to be turned in. He continued walking until he turned a corner into a very large market, and continued walking until he was talking to a grumpy old NPC. He finished the quest by handing the NPC the required items. He walked away, lost temporarily in thought, wondering where he would go adventuring next. He accidently bumped into a PC that was walking down the street, the character turned and started cussing at him, telling him to watch where he was going. Max only caught half of what the guy said, and mumbled a humble sorry back in Japanese. The character paused for a moment and responded to his apology.

"You're a complete newb aren't you?" He had said it a little slower this time, and Max was able to catch all of it.

"For a few months" Max replied in his best Japanese.

"Good, a young girl like you shouldn't be adventuring alone with out an expert Heavy Axe man with them." Max face palmed in real life. He knew that this was bound to happen, since he played as a female character in a game as advanced as "The World" was.

He was partly happy because of how convinced the other character was at his acting skills, although the computer movements handled most of it. Most of his friends in RL couldn't understand why he always chose a female character. Sometimes he didn't either, but he understood most of all that he couldn't stand playing a male character. Especially in most games where the camera is always aimed at a characters backside. It was always about the aesthetics, he would rather watch a female character all day then watch a male one. It was also fun in being able to fool people into thinking he really was female, especially when none of them would ever possibly find him in real life. Just becoming a completely different person was relaxing sometimes.

"I would be honored, my name is Valerie." Her response shocked the axeman. The polygons of his body went rigid for a little bit, and then he happily jumped into trying to impress this girl he had just met.

"Well then Balerie, we should get going."

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They ended up going out to one of the lower level fields, since his character was only level 30 or so. Valerie played her part well by encouraging and healing his character whenever they got into a battle. Valerie only used her weaker spells when she did need to help him in an attack. Over all Valerie had a good time while she was out adventuring with Suzaku, the fearless axeman.

The only trouble they had was when they entered the final chamber of the dungeon and a whole swarm of monsters dropped out of the portals that were in the room. Suzaku ran straight in and started launching as many attacks as he possibly could into the offending monsters. There were too many monsters though, and soon Suzaku was running away from all of the monsters. Valerie sighed, pulled out her strongest staff, and then released a level 4 lightning summon right into the horde of monsters.

All of the monsters dropped to the ground and disappeared leaving a few treasure chests, and a Gott statue appeared at the back of the room.

Valerie went around the room checking out all of the items in the chests, but leaving them so that Suzaku could pick them up. After a short pause for his character to recover, he started to pick up the spoils.

"You're quite strong aren't you, not the newbie that I made you out to be." Suzaku looked up from his rummaging as he said this.

"Thanks, It still was a lot of fun taking on this dungeon with you." Valerie blushed as she said this. Suzaku jumped up and proceeded in trying to get Valerie to join his guild.

"Our guild could really need someone of your caricature. Someone who could back up our strongest champions in an event that is coming up." Suzaku's arms flew in a variety of different directions as he tried to make his point.

"I'll think about it." Valerie wasn't quite sure about the idea of joining a guild. Although it would definitely help in the language department if she could talk to more people in the game.

"What's the name of your guild," she asked. Suzaku stood still for a little bit, and then he said something quietly.

"What was that? I need to know the name of the guild in order to join it." Valerie gave a smile trying to encourage Suzaku into saying the name again.

"Vanguard of Fairies" he finally said after a few moments of hesitations. Valerie smiled again.

"Sounds intriguing. Can I meet with the guild master as soon as possible." Suzaku looked up with an excited look on his face.

"Follow me after we reach Mac Anu." He said this as two rings appeared around him and he disappeared as they passed over him.

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Valerie phased out next to Suzaku and followed him as he dashed down the streets of Mac Anu. After a few minutes of running, they reached an old looking guild house that had very flimsy banner proclaiming the name of the guild. Valerie wasn't convinced on how great this guild was anymore. They continued walking after they entered until they reached a rather large room in the back that had a few tables and a shabby looking message board. Suzaku placed a wooden crate next to the table and then he motioned for her to sit. Then he walked out of the room, only to return a few seconds later with a young looking girl walking behind him.

It wasn't the fact that she looked so young, it was just that she had a blade that was easily three times her height strapped across her back. Valerie realized by the look of command in her eyes that she was definitely the guild leader. Valerie got up and bowed, and then she sat back down to observe the situation.

The girl walked up to her and gave her a once over, and then started asking questions about herself. Valerie responded honestly, thinking that this was some sort of test for her to enter into the ranks. Suzaku jumped when he found out how her level was, his reaction made Valerie smile for a moment. Then her attention turned back the guild master as she cleared her throat to get Valerie's attention back.

"We at the Fairy Vanguard, would be honored by your assistance. My name is Elise, you are welcome in the guild." Valerie breathed a sigh of relief at this, she was more impressed by the attitude of the members than the fortitude of their building. She had one question she needed to ask though.

"How many members are there in the guild." Elise answered honestly.

"There are three, now that you have joined."

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They had explained to her that guild had only been created between the two of them, and that they were planning to gain another member so that they could enter a team tournament that was coming up so that they could gain some notoriety.

Valerie realized that Elise wasn't much higher in level than Suzaku was, and they both needed to level up a ways before they could work well together as a team. So Valerie suggested that they take on a dungeon that was half way between their levels, so that they could gain bonus experience and level up faster.

Valerie noticed that both Elise and Suzaku worked surprising well together, often using their offensive abilities to take out any enemy before it became a problem. As a 3-man team they worked even better together, Valerie would stay back and provide support and buffs when needed and the two heavy hitters would take out anything using a high-low tactic. Suzaku would attack from the front and take all of a monsters attention, then Elise would sneak around using her small size and attack the creature's vulnerable backside. When needed Valerie would attack offensively to take out some of the larger mobs of creatures.

After a few weeks of hardcore dungeon hitting, the Fairy Vanguard was ready for "The World"'s Guild Tournament. In the event guilds would fight against each other, and only the strongest guilds in each classification. The classifications were split into guild sizes, small, medium, and large guilds, which were then split by the average levels of the characters. Since "Fairy Vanguard" fit barely into the higher level by having three players in it, they had to take any chance they could in the tournament.

After a particularly long group discussion, they had decided to try to leave Valerie in the back ground until she was absolutely needed in the battle. Valerie was ok with this, since she had been neglecting some of her healing and buff skills since the start of the game. They had decided that the best option was for Valerie to buff up Elise, and Suzaku as much as possible before they took on the enemy players. If the situation got worse, then Valerie would heal them when needed. If it got really bad then she would start causing as much damage with magical attacks as she could.

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Their first battle started with the launch of a small firework above the arena, setting off a cheer as the crowd urged on the contestants to battle. Valerie started with the buffs, applying speed and attack buffs to Elise, and defense and magical resistance. The opposing guild was made fully out of twin blades, and they wasted no time in trying to rush up and attack. Elise and Suzaku were able to keep them at bay until Valerie got done with her buffs. When Valerie finished she gave the signal, and Suzaku made a berserker charge right into the middle of the waiting twin blades.

The twin blades backed off at his charge, and then started to make small ineffective hits against Suzaku's armor. Suzaku just kept swinging as fast as he could and was able to hit one of the twin blades in a full out attack that left him reeling. All of the attention from the twin blades swiveled to Suzaku as he took out the injured twin blade, and started approaching the group that had been harassing Elise and Valerie. As one they all attacked Suzaku, using the strongest attacks that they could. Suzaku's health started to take a down fall, and his armor couldn't take every one of the magic attacks that they were hitting him with. Valerie started healing him after she finished a buff that she had been placing on Elise. Suzaku kept up his attack and had taken out two more of the original 8 twin blades.

The leader of the group stepped back from the assault on Suzaku for a second to check something when a blur of movement appeared behind him. He turned his head just a little bit to see a giant blade fly through his character. Elise had taken out the guilds leader, and moved on to the next individual to step out of the ensuing melee with Suzaku. Valerie kept up her healing of Suzaku as he kept the Twin Blades locked in battle with him. One by one the Twin blades were falling, either due to a multiple hits from Suzaku's axe, or a K'O from Elise. As the last of the twin blades dropped the crowd roared.

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After a second battle with just as easy odds, the Fairy Vanguard had no more battles to fight. Max was exhilarated at the battles that he had just watched, and couldn't wait for the battles to come. He was also exhausted and worried about an exam that would take place the next day, and he had been so busy playing that he was afraid that he might fail the exam. He decided that he would have to deal with it when it came, but he needed some rest first. After a

He woke up and started studying for his history test, cramming as much of the information from the quizzes and handouts as he possibly could. He had overslept, but wasn't bothered since he didn't have classes that day. He studied for a few hours until he was satisfied with his ability to recall and then dashed off to the testing center.

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Valerie dodged another attack from a particularly quick swordsman, he had slipped past Suzaku, Elise when they had spit up to try to distract their five opponents from their support. So far only two of their weaker members had fallen, and they were currently working one on one. Suzaku and Elise were up against their respective classes, and were pretty evenly matched with their opponents.

The swordsman had a constant smirk on his face that was getting more and more amusing as Valerie kept dodging each and every on of his attacks. He made a sudden lunge forward with a piercing attack, almost clipping Valerie with his sword as he flew past her. Valerie swirled her staff around and let loose a lightning spell as it contacted with the swordsman's head. A small explosion took place on impact, and the swordsman went flying into a wall with 0HP. Elise took advantage of the distraction and an over swing by her opponent to drop him low. Suzaku on the other hand had taken too much damage from his opponent and needed some help. Valerie used a couple of heal spells, and Elise stepped behind the over large character. Suzaku winked, and Elise and him launched into their dual attack. The Heavy Axeman didn't stand a chance and fell from their attack.

"This is almost as easy as that "Heavens, Forbidden, Castle" stage that we took on last week." Suzaku remarked as they left the arena.

"Yes. Our opponents were weak. Just like our previous battles." Valerie said as a response to his statement. She was looking through her inventory, and was excited to see that the first of the three individual prizes from the competition had been delivered to her. Looking at its stats she was even more excited, "Areaul's Ring" boosted a characters speed by a quarter and was a relatively rare item in the game.

"We have gotten the individual rewards for the first three battles." Valerie said as she put on the ring and noticed the enhancement to her speed almost immediately. She started casting healing spells so that the team would be at full health for their next battle, and noticed that the ring also sped up the casting time for her healing spells.

"That's cool. We will have to put them to good use, our next opponents won't be so easy." Elise said seriously as they walked into the stands to watch the next battle. The people who won this battle would surely be their next opponents, and Valerie wanted to make sure that they could strategize for their next group of opponents.

The battle started and the opponents had equal 4 on 4 teams. The battle started out normally with the Wavemaster's buffing out their opponents stats, until one of the twin blades got bored and rushed up with outstanding speed to take out one of the other teams wavemasters. He did a back flip, and power bladed his way through their second wavemaster. The team that had been reduced to two people started attacking the twin blade that had taken out their comrades.

Over all it was an outstanding victory, though it was easy to see that the only problem they would have with their next battle was the twin blade.

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The battle took place a half an hour later, and the enemy team was almost prancing with anticipation. Elise was making plans the whole time they were preparing for the battle.

"We are going to have reveal our trump card before I had hoped, but hopefully it will workout. What level do you think he is?" Elise asked Valerie as they walked out to the field.

"From his speed, and some of his stronger attacks, he seemed to be maybe 5 levels below mine. I did notice a small lag when he released his magical attacks though." Valerie felt confident that she would be able to battle the Twin Blade.

"Just try to keep him from getting a direct hit on me at the very start of the battle." Valerie commented as they took their positions on the field.

The firework exploded overhead and the teams started preparing for the battle. Instead of buffing out their team though, Valerie started to prepare on of her stronger spells.

"Keep him off of me." Valerie announced as the Twin blade started dashing in their direction.

Just as the Twin blade reached them though, Valerie let loose the spell she had been preparing. A very powerful level 4 lightning summon dropped on the 3 opponents that had been left behind the Twin blade. The 3 opponents were wiped out and all that was left was a smoking crater on one side of the arena. The crowd went silent for a second, and then went crazy cheering for the outstanding show of power.

Valerie looked back to her team and saw that the Twin blade had taken out Suzaku, and was giving trouble to a very worn out Elise. The Twin Blade looked just as worn out as Elise was though, and looked unsure how he could win against two opponents. Valerie stepped up the side and gathered all of her SP through an item that she had picked up in a dungeon, the item allowed her to channel all of her SP through it into one very strong spell. She prepared the spell and cast it, letting all of the magical waves flow through her and to the target in the form of a spell.

An odd look crossed the characters face before he dropped to the ground asleep. Elise took this chance to finish him off with a coup de grace.

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After their 4rth battle, Elise, Suzaku, and Valerie left and headed straight to a field called "Sickened, Imprisoned, Fallen Angel". They had all heard that the monsters on this field were all of a relatively high level. Elise led the team out as soon as they warped into the field into a blizzard that blocked almost all visibility. The team stuck close together and advanced as they went across the field. Every few meters a portal would open and a high level monster would pop out and the team would have to compete with it for a few minutes before it fell. More often than not though a monster would take them by surprise by rushing them long before they had any chance of seeing them.

After an hour of battling, they found themselves on the slope of a rather steep mountain, taking cover from the elements, and recuperating from their many battles. They had tried to turn back, only to find that they had been blocked by a variety of different portals that let loose swarms of vicious creatures. The only cover they had been able to find was the mouth of a cave.

"I say we see how far into this cave we can reach." Elise said as she finished chugging the rest of the restorative that she had been working on.

"I agree. If we can defeat the boss, then all of the portals on the map would disappear." Suzaku always agreed with what Elise said.

"It may be hard. All of the previous monsters were just as hard as a boss in any other stage." Valerie said pessimistically. She was started to get fatigued from being out so long.

"Come on. The Fairy Vanguard doesn't give into failure. We go all of the way." Elise was always energetic, and it really was no surprise why she became a guild leader. It just sucked that since their guild had so few members, they had to deal with the lack of resources that were able to guilds.

"I guess your right. It's the best option we have at this point. I just hope that the treasure will be worth the effort." Valerie had always wanted to take on this stage before, but was never able to accomplish the task because of time restrictions on the field. Luckily guilds were allowed an unlimited time on some of the harder level fields.

"It will. It will. I can't wait to hear the praise for us as we get back from slaying the boss." Suzaku pronounced as he swung his axe around in emphasis.

"If worse comes to worse, then we will let you have a round with one of your more powerful spells." Elise said cheerfully. She stood up and waved everybody on.

They walked down the sloping curve of the tunnel, keeping a keen eye out for any of the monsters that they had face outside. They kept walking until Suzaku made a misstep and fell through a hole that they were trying to work their way around. Without missing a beat, Elise jumped down the shaft after him, and Valerie followed shortly after. The hole dropped them a thousand feet before they hit the surface of an underground lake.

Valerie looked around and was surprised at the amount of light that filled the chamber. She looked up and noticed there was a large crystal attached to the top of the cavern that gave off a mysteriously bright light.

The group was able to swim to an island that was in the middle of lake, and relax after the terrifying fall. It appeared that there were several other holes around the crystal as well as the one that they had fallen through.

"What do you say we do now?" asked Suzaku.

"We could try to see what the crystal does." Elise responded looking at Valerie hoping to find some clue behind the object.

Valerie looked at the crystal again, all she could tell though was that the crystal had a slightly brighter shape inside of it. Valerie decided that sitting and staring at the thing wouldn't do any good so she cast a weak lightning spell at it. The spell ricocheted off of it and landed somewhere in the lake. Valerie switched staffs and cast a wood spell at it this time, with the same effect. Hoping for another chance she switched again and launched a stronger fire spell at it.

This time a small crack was heard, and a small piece of the crystal fell onto the island. Elise went over to check the item, and found that it was just a hand sized crystal with a small bit of light infused inside of it.

"Valerie, get over here and appraise this." Elise said, entranced by the play of light inside of the crystal.

Valerie walked over and examined the crystal, casting a minor spell that would tell the worth of the fascinating piece of rock. After a few moments a small screen appeared before her and she whistled.

"The crystal seems to be worth a lot more than any little loot that we could pick up regularly in any dungeon that we have been in before. It also seems to take on the characteristics of any elemental spell that you cast at it, and then the only way to damage it is to hit with the opposite element." It seemed to Valerie that if just one little stone could cost so much and be so useful, they could seriously upgrade all of their equipment to a much higher level.

Valerie started to cast more spells at the big chunk of crystal and watched as it degraded until it was no longer there. They gathered all of the crystal pieces that had fallen to the ground, and then started to look for a way out of the cavern they were in.

After much searching, the group finally stumbled across a trail of under water stepping stones. Elise quickly started across the water, hopping and splashing through the water that covered the stones. Valerie followed soon after, with Suzaku following slowly behind. It took them twenty minutes to jump across all of the stones and make to a small beach with a tunnel leading up. Elise let Valerie take the lead this time, and Valerie stepped forward casting a lighting spell to make sure that they could see farther into the tunnel. The tunnel led upward, and doubled back on itself often enough for the team to tell that the tunnel had been hand-made.

They kept going up and up, waiting for the tunnel to stop and let them out onto the top of the mountain. Finally after many minutes of trudging up the steps the group noticed an outstanding change in the temperature. The slope had switched to steps and they had to be careful because of the extremely slippery floor. They finally reached the end of the tunnel to find that there was a rather large rock covering most of the exit.

"Let me take care of this." Suzaku said, stepping up to the boulder and pulling out his hammer. He braced himself, and let loose with a full out attack on the boulder. His hammer bounced off the rock, but the rock fell out of the way from the force of the hit. The team crawled out of the tunnel, and looked out over the frozen expanse that they had traversed earlier. The view was stunning, and they could see all the way back to the portal through the crisp, cold air. They were so distracted that they failed to see the form rising out of the snow behind them.

Valerie turned in time to see the form of a very large, glowing dragon rise completely out of the snow. She noticed that the dragon started preparing its breath weapon, so she started casting her strongest shield spell to protect the entire team. She cast the spell just in time for the breath weapon to hit it. The force was too great for the spell though, and it was strong enough to send the team flying high into the air.

All three of them flew for a few minutes, the first two of which happened to be very disorienting. Valerie was the first one to recover, and she started to cast spells to keep them together, and to slow their flight. They landed gently right next to the "Chaos Gate". They looked back across the field to see that the dragon was flying after them, and they decided that it was probably a good idea to go through the gate before the dragon caught up to them. They started exiting one by one, and were able to escape before the dragon reached them.

On the other side of the gate, the group looked at each other and started laughing, thrilled because of the adventure that they had just been through.

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Max woke up to the sound of his alarm clock going off. He had almost become nocturnal the last few nights for the sake of the tournament. He turned off the infernal device, and slowly woke himself up out of his slumber. He exited his room, and made himself breakfast, forcing himself to wake up enough to actually have the appearance of normalcy. He had several classes that morning, and he was afraid that his teachers would become worried about his appearance. Overall though he didn't really care, the adventure that he had had last night had been one of the most exciting things that he had ever done. He was starting to not care so much about the real world, and his thoughts almost always revolved around his life in the virtual one recently. In some ways this scared him, in others it didn't bother him too much.

"Maybe he would come down with some disease that made it so he could constantly play as his character in "The World"" he thought to himself a little morbidly.

He finished his breakfast, took a shower, put some clothes on and ran off to his classes.

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The Fairy Vanguard stepped out into the ring to loud ring of cheers from the entire crowd. Suzaku flexed his arms up waving to the stands, while Elise nonchalantly walked to their corner of the battle field with Valerie following nervously behind her. The other team had yet to enter the field, as they were waiting for their leader to show up to the battle. Elise took this chance to try to encourage her team on.

"This is our last battle, and this is the one that counts. Pull no shots, and go full out on this battle. Use the items that we got to the best advantage and we may have a shot at this. If it counts for anything, out of 33 different guilds, we will either be the first, or the second. So give it your all." Elise said the last bit with as much force as she could muster.

The enemy team finally entered the field and they were able to see what they would be facing. A twin blade, a wavemaster, a swordmaster, and a heavy blade were their opponents this time. Their leader that had been late happened to be the twin blade, a twin blade that looked confident and ready to take out anybody that got in his way.

Elise had only one word as the flag was set off. "Win", and she dashed forward as fast as she could. Suzaku followed closer behind, while Valerie stayed behind and buffed them from a distance. Elise was just as fast as the twin blade so she was able to slip past him, and the rest of the team, to attack the enemy wavemaster. The wavemaster took a few hits before it fell to the onslaught. Suzaku followed up with an attack on the enemies' heavy blade, taking the large man by surprise, and dropping his health by half.

Valerie watched all of this, half surprised by how fast and efficient Suzaku and Elise had become. They had obviously been holding back for the last while, either that or the new equipment that they had gotten after the dungeon excursion. She didn't have much time to think though, the enemies blademaster had slipped past the attacks of Suzaku and Elise, and had launched himself into a full out sprint towards Valerie. Valerie sidestepped and started strafing around the enemy casting a variety of curses. The curses dropped the targets speed, defense, and magic resistance. Then Valerie cast a lightning spell and stepped forward to smack the character across the field. The spell missed when the blademaster was able to get his sword up to parry the attack, his hp dropped significantly due to the voltage that flew up his sword.

Valerie stepped back and let loose with a tornado spell that sent the blademaster into the stands. Valerie looked back to the rest of the battle and saw that Suzaku and Elise had both taken down their targets and were currently backpedaling from the swift and deadly attacks of the twin blade. Valerie ran forward to help her team out of their conundrum.

The twin blade kept the two heavy hitters back pedaling with very strong and very fast magical attacks. Valerie got on the other side of her team and started casting spells to heal her team mates. After they had been healed to a good level, they started counter attacking, with Valerie casting offensive spells at the guy. Although their attacks were hitting, the guy didn't seem to be effected by any of them and appeared to be preparing something particularly nasty.

After a full minute of exhausting battle, Valerie stepped back and started to prepare her strongest spell. The twin blade jumped over her teammates to make a touch attack on Valerie. His fingers touched Valerie's shoulder and released a small glow that quickly enveloped Valerie's whole body. By the time that he stepped away though her spell was completely ready, and she lashed out with her staff to deliver the spell. When the staff connected with the twin blade nothing happened though, the twin smiled wickedly and started to explain as he dodged attacks from Suzaku and Elise.

"Ha, now you can't launch any spells for a few minutes. The poor little fairies will fall without their bodyguard." His demented sneer just ticked off Valerie and she started thinking quickly about her predicament. He had made it so she couldn't launch any spells for a little while, but that didn't mean that her spell casting ability was blocked, just her ability to release them. After a few more moments Valerie gave a very wicked smile herself, and started to cast spells as fast as she could, taking care to not cast anything that would cancel out any previous spells that she had cast.

In-between her casting she announced something to the cocky twin blade. "You better be ready for when those few minutes are up, because I'm going to rain hell on you when they are up."

The twin blade backed off from the attacks of her teammates and looked to be thinking about this for a moment.

"No problem he sneered, this just means that you die first." He sneered at the end of his statement and launched himself at Valerie.

Valerie sidestepped his attack, keeping a constant stream of spells going all at the same time. The twin blade shot right past her, stopping only for half a second to jump and come somersaulting back at her. Valerie was on her sixth spell, and was keeping a close watch on the tumbling twin blade. She dodged a scissor attack from his small blade, and continued circling around his attacks in the center of a ring of dust that had been thrown up in their dance. For a second it almost seemed like a dance as well, with the graceful movements of an attack and a well executed dodge.

Valerie wasn't entirely sure how much time she did have, so she kept up her casting marathon as long as she possibly could. After about a full minute she had to start dropping from her higher level spells, since her manna had started to level out after 10th spell. These spells casted faster, but did less damage, but none of this mattered to Valerie. She could only focus on taking out the twin blade that was in front of her.

Suzaku and Elise had figured out the plan and after a second to recover their stamina, they joined in the fray to keep the twin blade from taking out Valerie before the timer ran out. They both double teamed him keeping him very busy while Valerie kept cycling through as many spells that she could remember, she could feel the waves around her were trembling due to the amount of pressure that spells were making.

The twin blade also noticed the trembling, so he jumped back and started preparing something. He froze in place for a few seconds, giving Suzaku and Elise time to run up to him and start hacking at his prone character. He started moving a second later with a lot more damage then he had obviously expected, since he was swearing as he ran away.

Valerie caught up to the other two, making sure that her staff was aimed at the offending twin blade. The twin blade kept running until he had positioned himself in the middle of the arena. He turned around with an evil grin as he lifted something in his hands into the air, and started screaming some complicated gibberish. Valerie, Suzaku, and Elise walked slowly up to the screaming twin blade ready for anything when the guy stopped his screaming, lowered his hands, and laughed.

"Prepare to die." He said and then started to laugh maniacally as he looked up. The team followed his gaze to see three red specs appear in the sky, the descended extremely fast and took places right behind the characters. Valerie looked behind her to see a large red cross floating behind her.

An invisible force ceased the fairy vanguard, and they lifted to hover just in front of the crosses. A bright light enveloped them and each one of them started to get extremely dizzy.

At this time though, the twin blades effect on Valerie wore off releasing magical waves that rivaled the force of a hundred atomic bombs. Luckily only the inside of the arena was affected. The magical energy completely obliterated any traces of the twin blade, but the crosses still hung there tattered and broken with the characters no where to be seen.

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Max woke up with an astounding headache, and wandered over to the sink in his room to gulp down some ibuprofen. After swallowing four, he laid back on his bed and pulled on his headphones turning the music up loud enough that the bass could sync with his headache. After his headache had gone down, he got up again, looked at his computer confused. He had been playing "The World" last thing that he knew, and he realized that he had woken up on the floor just a few minutes ago. Puzzling over this he switched his computer on to see if he could find anything about the tournament had gotten on to the BBS.

After a little bit of searching he had a pretty good idea of what had happened. Since the biggest announcement that the tournament had been annulled since the team with the obnoxious twin blade, had a hacker in it, which happened to be the same twin blade. Max sighed looked across his room at his mirror, wondering why they even took the chance at the dumb tournament in the first place. After a few seconds of staring at the mirror, he started to realize something.

Staring back at him was a real life version of his character, and he was pretty sure it wasn't just an image from his computer. He got up, walked over to his mirror, making sure that what he was saying was real.

"What in the world?" he said as he got to his sink. He noticed that his voice was extremely high, and he realized that the voice changing device that he had been using during the game was on and was changing an already high pitched voice. The out fit that his character was wearing was flattering but pretty much covered everything, although he blushed when he looked down and noticed the two small bumps rising from his chest. He also noticed the lack of certain something, and he slumped to the floor. His headache started to skyrocket due to the stress of the moment, and he passed out from shock.

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Max woke up again in a few hours to hear the familiar sound of a pm on his computer. He walked over to his computer, to look at the screen and noticed that there wasn't a PM on it at all. Confused, he walked back over to his mirror inspect his situation for a second time. He wasn't concerned with the role-play that he now would have to accomplish, due to the fact that he had been doing it for months in video game format.

The sound came again, and he returned quickly to his computer to check and see if there was anything new. Again it didn't show anything, but he did notice that when the ping took place his vision blurred for a second. He waited for a few moments, and like clockwork the ping happened again. When his vision blurred he noticed that a little holographic tab popped up in the left lower corner of his vision. He grabbed at it with his hand and a video screen popped up in his vision, to reveal a two way conversation between Elise and Suzaku. Their characters looked exactly right, just they looked more realistic, and their backgrounds were extremely real.

"It happened to you two as well." Valerie said to the two of them in a shocked voice.

"Yes, it seems so." Replied Elise calmly. "We all seem to inhabiting the bodies of our video game characters."

"It also seems that we have access to many of the games features." Suzaku commented.

"Any idea how this could happen?" Valerie asked. It seemed that these two were just as perplexed as she was.

"No clue." Both Suzaku and Elise answered at the same time. "But we should probably meet up to try and find out what happened. It probably had to do with those red crosses somehow." Elise replied.

"Isn't it so cool that we are our video game characters in real life?" Suzaku said as he flexed his big muscles.

"It would be cool if it weren't so awkward. I don't look anywhere near this in real life," said Elise as she showed us a picture of her real self. She was around 5 feet tall with a professional looking suit on, she was obviously in her early forties. Her character made her look like a little kid.

"At least you didn't switch gender." Valerie mumbled to herself.

"What was that?" said Elise a little testily. "You know how much an inconvenience this is, I can't work at my job like this."

"I said at least you got to stay the same gender. There is no way that I'm going to be able to go to my college classes now." Valerie retorted, unhappy that the conversation had turned negative.

"Whoa, how'd you pull that off? I thought that playing a tranny in game wasn't possible." Suzaku said, sounding a little perplexed.

"I've got friends that work for CC corp., I asked them if it was possible and they said yes. That and I got a voice changing device from my uncle last Christmas." Valerie said as she scratched her head, a little embarrassed that her secret had been found out.

"Then we need to get together as soon as possible to figure out what happened. We could use those CC Corp ties you have Valerie." Elise said firmly. After she had heard the whole story she seemed to be less hostile.

"That would be great, but I don't live in Japan. I'm a college student in southern Utah." Valerie wasn't sure how this was going to work out, but she knew that Elise probably had the best idea.

"Which University do you go to? I've got some acquaintances that could help me get a free study abroad program set up for you. I am the dean of languages at Tokyo University after all." Elise said after a few moments of thought.

"I go to DSU, would that work out?" Valerie replied.

"That works perfectly for me, let me make a plan so we can get you over here." Elise disappeared, leaving an awkward silence between Suzaku and Valerie.

"So have you checked out the new hardware?" Suzaku asked.

"You are not helping." Valerie disappeared after that, leaving Suzaku looking perplexed and confused.

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Max kept getting messages all day from Suzaku, apologizing about being insensitive. After about the fifth message, he forgave him. He had other things on his mind, and they didn't have to do with the gender change. He had figured out how to cast spells in real life. At first it had been on accident due to his alarm clock going off, and he just flicked his hand at it and watched it explode. He had also realized that his sight had changed, even if it wasn't hard to tell in the first place. Everything looked like it was made out of fluctuating waves, from his bed to the air. He just had to focus on them to be able to affect them.

Thinking on this for a little while, and idea popped into his head. If light was made out of waves, at least to his vision, then he could essentially make illusions. If he could make illusions, then he could make himself at least look like he used to. He stepped up to his mirror, turned the light on, and then started focusing on trying to distinguish light waves from air waves. After staring at his reflection for a little while, he got another idea. He turned on the lamp on his dresser and stared at it for a little while. At first he didn't see anything different, then he could see that light seemed to move faster and couldn't reach places that airwaves could.

Tentatively, he reached out and focused on these light waves. At first they didn't do anything, but after a few seconds he was able gather them together to form a little ball of light. The ball of light floated there until Max imagined it flying around his room, the ball of light reacted to the imagery and followed the exact course that he had imagined. He tested with this for a little while, and then tried to change its color. Nothing happened. Perplexed he went online to research how he might be able to get it to work. After searching for a minute he came up with an idea to make it work.

He looked back at the ball of white light, and willed it to make the waves move slower, the ball started to change into a warmer color, pinkish mostly. Focusing a bit harder the color was able to change to firm red color, then he focused on the sphere again to make it speed up and it changed colors slowly until it finally turned blue. He experimented with the color changes for a while until he could change the balls color to any color that he could think of.

Max thought about it for few seconds more, and then he will the sphere to take a humanoid shape. It wasn't very large, but it would work for now. After managing to make the form at least look human, he started adding colors based off of a picture he had on his phone. It was complicated to get the colors all right, but after a few minutes of tight focus on the figure, he was able to make an exact replica of the picture. The next problem was going to be making the little character sized right. The illusion took a lot of effort though, since it needed to be focused on constantly to maintain it. His headache had dissipated after the ibuprofen had taken effect, but after having focused on his little illusion for a little while the headache had returned in full force. He dropped his focus from the illusion, walked over to his bed and tried to relax.

He sat there trying to make sense of his situation. He had honestly been telling himself that it would be awesome if he could become his character. The power to accomplish the impossible with just the wave of his hand. It all seemed much more complicated now that he thought about it, not just the fact that his gender had been switched and that he now looked like a completely different person. It was also what would happen if he could never change back.

No, No, he told himself forcefully, I can't quite accept that fact. There should be a way to change back, even if it took him a while to figure it out. He knew he needed to get some exercise, something to clear his head more than he had done so before with games. He got up and looked at his computer, and noticed that it was a relatively good time to go for a jog. Midnight was a goodtime to do a lot of secret things, and people wouldn't think there was some weird girl in the neighborhood.

He ran outside, and just kept running for as long as he could. His thoughts disappeared as he reveled in the wind flowing against him. Running let loose some of the muscles that had gotten so tensed up from his entire ordeal. He kept running for as long as he possibly could, and stopped to catch his breath. He looked up at his surroundings, a little confused, he had never been to this part of town before. He stood atop a large plateau that ran right through the center of the town he lived in, with the black of the basalt flows he was standing on slowly transitioning to red sedimentary.

He stared up at the stars from his vantage point, at first straining his eyes to see through the light pollution, and then seeing everything clearly all the way up to the heavens. Being able to see the majesty of the Milky Way calmed him down and he was able to think clearly for the first time since he had changed.

"I've been changed into my video game character." He pronounced silently to himself. "I have been turned into my female video game character," he muttered again.

In his mind there were only a few choices open before him. He could desperately search for a cure to this condition, straining his sanity every second until he went back to normal. He could accept the condition, forgetting his former existence and truly become his character. Although that wouldn't solve any problems, it would only affect his sanity, just in a different way. Or he could stay calm, accept his situation and calmly work through the issue. The last one was probably the best option for now, although he wondered if he was already insane and was just hallucinating this whole episode.

He stayed up on the ridge for a few hours more before he walked down off of the hill, and headed home.

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He got back to his apartment, covered his eyes, and then proceeded in a long and very embarrassing episode of trying to take a shower. He got back out of the shower, and put on some of his old clothes. They completely drowned his new character, and he had to cinch up the shorts that he had put on all the way and then some to fit around his waist. Just as he got done he slipped under his covers, still confused about the past day, he snuggled into his covers and then drifted off to sleep.

A few minutes later he got a PM from Elise, he shot up in his bed, and opened the chat.

"What's going on?" Valerie's persona took full frontage, pushing Max aside for the time being.

"I've been in contact with your school, and they have happily agreed to send you over here to Japan for a rather intensive study abroad program. That and the school I work for has agreed to pay for the rest. The only problem is that you have to go to the offices to sign all of the papers that will send you over." Elise said confidently, and calmly.

"I may have come up with a way to achieve that." Valerie responded. "I've figured out that our abilities in the game are achievable here, but it takes a bit of concentration to make them work. I've already figured out how to make an illusion of myself, it just takes a good deal of focus."

"Hmm, what about items. Suzaku and I have been able to get into all of our items. Would one of yours be able to take a the place of your focus?" Elise asked, and then she went on explaining how to gain access to the items.

After searching though the item list she was able to find an item that would work. It was a fragment of the large jewel that they had come across on their last dungeon foray.

"With this I should be able to disguise myself, and when I get over there I will be able to get some to you guys." Valerie responded, happy to finally have something figured out. Elise went on to explain the pointless details that the writer feels to bored to put down. After the explanation she relaxed and they just started to talk.

"You seem a lot calmer than you were the last time that we talked," commented Elise.

"I guess your right. I ended up taking a run, looked at the stars for a bit. I came to the conclusion that if I panicked I would only make things worse." Valerie said.

"That does seem to be the best thing to do. It would seem that you were the most inconvenienced by this accident." Elise replied.

"Hahaha, As long as we figure this out before things get too embarrassing, I think I'll be fine." Valerie said.

"Haha, we will definitely have to find a fix. Hopefully we will be able to use your skills to figure at least something out." Elise responded. She then looked over her shoulder, almost panicking.

"Is there any way that you can make the Illusion work over here?" Elise asked looking a little panicked.

"I could try. I'm probably going to need a focus and a picture on your side of the link though." Valerie said a little perplexed.

"Can't you just make me invisible." Elise said quietly. It seemed from the area behind her that she had backed herself into a corner. She had pulled out one of the crystals and was holding it to her chest.

"Alright." Valerie focused hard as she could on the crystal, and on Elise. This didn't seem to work, so Valerie dug through her inventory until she found a staff that had the light element attached to it. She then channeled all of her power into the spell. The spell took a lot of focus, but appeared to be taking effect on the other side of the link. With all of her focus though, it could only make Elise very indistinct, and she looked somewhat like a ghost of child. It wasn't until she accidently tripped over her chair that the effect took full effect.

Valerie couldn't make sense of it though, tripping had shattered her focus and the spell shouldn't be working anymore. Then she noticed that the waves were heading out the window and were bouncing off of the satellite dish that had been placed outside of the apartment's window. She focused again, this time on the crystal placing the focus inside of the crystal. She then dropped her focus again. Elise kept the spell going though, and it was working extremely well.

"Whatever you do, don't stop focusing on the crystal. It should work just fine until you MP runs out." Valerie whispered quietly.

"Thank you," Elise sobbed quietly.

"What's wrong?" Valerie whispered.

"There are is a group of thugs that just broke into my house." Elise sobbed.

"Couldn't you take them out with your sword, either that or scare them off." Valerie said quietly.

"Their yakuza, they will just pull out a gun and shoot me." Elise voice was quivering from fear.

"Alright, stay calm and try not to make a noise. What's your address?" Valerie said forcefully, yet still quiet.

Elise muttered out the address, and then went back to cowering in the corner.

Valerie quickly closed out of the link, and then quickly linked one to Suzaku.

"Huh, Valerie. I didn't think you would ever be calling me back after I stuck my foot in my mouth." Suzaku said as soon as the link opened up. His surroundings were completely different, and he seemed to be in a park of some kind. Though his outfit hadn't changed at all.

"Elise is in trouble. How close are you to this address?" Valerie said quickly. She quickly caught Suzaku up to the situation. He took off running as soon as Valerie had given him the address.

"I'm really not far from there, I was just walking home from convention. Won a lot of money in a cosplay contest," he said proudly as he started running at a sprint.

"Cool, just get there fast. I'll support you from here." Valerie said as she opened here window a crack, rested her staff against the window seal, and started casting speed boosting spells at Suzaku as fast as she could.

"Whoa, how are you accomplishing this." Suzaku said as his sprint became even more super human than it already was.

"Satellites." Valerie responded.

"That's so cool." Suzaku said as he jumped over a bustling highway. Suzaku's speed just kept getting faster, until he skidded to a halt in front of a quiet little house. Valerie set some defense based spells on him, before he rushed into the house.

From her viewpoint, Suzaku ran in and started punching things at random, from the sounds that she was getting though, they were connecting with men with very foul language. She heard a gunshot, and a bullet that ricocheted off of Suzaku's armor. Suzaku got ticked and just started throwing people out the door, yelling words in Japanese that Valerie had never even heard before. After all of the thugs had been cleared, Suzaku went up the stairs and started to call out to Elise.

Valerie opened up a link to Elise, and found that she had climbed inside of a closet and had fallen asleep. She quickly notified Suzaku and he calmly left her alone, while he tried to straighten up the place.

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Max walked out of the airport in Tokyo, purposefully making himself at least appear to walk normally. The shape and colors of the illusion had been the easiest part, making the illusion walk normally had been a completely different matter. He had to use two crystals to make the whole ensemble work. One to maintain the illusion, and another to turn his now real feminine body invisible. In fact it probably took more focus making the illusion believable, than it did to actually maintain it. Having to stomp around, tiptoe when he needed to grab something, and then coordinate the illusion to act on cue.

He walked out into the blinding daylight and laughed, finally glad that the long plane flight had ended. He walked down the street, considering what he should do. Elise had set it up to have him stay as a live in renter at her house, even though he was pretty sure the school was just adding more money to her paycheck. Suzaku had been roped into this as well, though he had just been able to switch departments. It really didn't seem to bother him very much, he just was just in it for the adventure.

He walked calmly down the street, glad that he didn't have to pack much. Mostly due to the fact that his clothes no longer fit in most directions, the only clothes that did fit were the ones that he woke up in after the incident. So he had to do with cleaning the outfit frequently, although it was relatively easily now that he had access to "magic".

He continued to walk down the street, until he noticed the area was getting way too crowded. He was seriously going to freak people out if they believed there was some sort of ghost gaijin walking around in the city. So he ducked in between some buildings, hid behind a dumpster and dropped the spell. Then he used the illusion again to make himself look more normal. With a quick look at a puddle on the ground for assurance, he stepped out onto the street determined not to make a fool of himself. He had planned this from the get go, turn off the illusion and makes his way as Valerie.

Valerie hopped out the other side of the alley and started walking, keeping an eye on the distracting and very confusing sights. She ended up wandering in circles until she was able to get a map in English. She followed the directions on the map, and got on the right train to get to the station that Elise and Suzaku were waiting at. The train wasn't too crowded, and she was able to relax relatively easily. Since "The World was a Japanese game, the characters looked at least close enough to pass as a person of Japanese descent.

At the next stop, a bunch of people got on the train, and it got crowded really quick. Valerie was getting squished, and she was having a hard time getting air. So she stood up and held onto one of the railings. Someone quickly took her seat, and she had to strain to get her head above the crush of people.

After a few minutes of very claustrophobic conditions, something made Valerie jump. It was the oddest sensation that she had ever felt, and it was not comfortable. Somebody was feeling up her backside. She looked at the window and saw that it was an old perverted geezer, and he would get a very satisfied look on his face when he touched her.

She was ticked, and she was definitely going to do something about it. She quickly formed a field around herself, and caused it to start gaining a particularly nasty charge. The next time the guy reached, he jumped and hit the roof, putting a rather large dent on it. He passed out and ended up getting put on a seat far enough away that Valerie could relax a little bit. For the rest of the trip though she was extra cautious, especially when there were older men around her.

Valerie got off of the train and walked gladly away from the crowded terminal. She did not want to go through that again.

She continued walking until she turned a corner and ran into a very large man with full body armor on. She looked up and there was Suzaku. He looked down surprised that somebody had bumped into him and he bent down to help her up.

"Oh, I'm so terribly sorry." He said kindly. He helped her back on her feet, and then bowed humbly trying to ask for forgiveness.

"No problem. " Valerie responded lightly brushing herself off. Suzaku took a closer look, and then did a double take.

"Valerie, is that you?" he asked.

"Who else were you expecting? Why'd you decide to come in full gear anyway?" She asked.

"So that you would be able to spot me more easily, of course." He said matter of factly.

"How'd you get here anyway?" She asked, looking around as they walked out of the station. They walked farther around the station to a parking lot, and walked up to a Jeep that was sitting idling.

"Oh, Elise drove us here." Suzaku said.

"Is she even able to reach the wheel?" Valerie asked as they hopped into the Jeep. Elise was sitting behind the wheel, sitting on a seat that had been jacked up way too far for its own good. Valerie couldn't help but smile when she saw this, and Elise picked up on that as soon as she was in the vehicle.

"Just because of how I look in this car doesn't give you reason to laugh." Elise fumed.

"I'm just enjoying the implications." Valerie responded quickly.

"Haha, like a kid driving a Jeep isn't any more funny in America." Elise replied sarcastically.

"Just another reason to stay off of the sidewalks." Valerie quipped back. They both laughed at this, and Elise started the car and moved it onto the road.

"Did you guys figure anything else out during my flight?" Valerie asked.

"Nothing that we didn't already know." Elise responded. " We are currently trying to get a hold of somebody that works for CC Corp. and talk to them, but they've been dodging my calls."

"Mmmm, that sucks. I've got some friends that work for them, maybe they can get us in touch with the right people." Valerie said as she pulled out her phone and started texting. After a few minutes a response came, saying that the friends were extremely busy at the moment, and probably wouldn't be able to help with anything for a while.

"That's odd." Valerie said. "They seem to be extremely busy with something. Maybe due to the events that transpired before the incident."

"That would make sense. The server we were on crashed, and they had to lock down all of the others. That same server that crashed is still down for some reason." Suzaku said.

"I'm not entirely sure how the battle in the arena could of made the server crash?" Elise responded.

"Well Valerie did end up releasing almost every single spell in the game at once in a relatively confined space. Maybe the coding was damaged hard enough, that they now have root out the corrupted files." Suzaku countered.

"So this is all my fault?" Valerie cried, finally looking up from her phone.

"Could be, but it's probably due to the hacker that everything went wrong for us. The hacker probably corrupted the files in the first place, and caused the whole incident to happen." Elise mused out loud.

"Then why did we turn into our characters?" Valerie asked, speaking out the question that they all had on their minds.

"Who knows?" Elise said.

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Max paced inside of his room, extremely tired, but unable to sleep. There was so much going on, they had spent an entire day trying to get as much info about "The World" as they possibly could. They hadn't had very much luck, they had found out about the mysterious disappearance of the creator of the game, Harold Hoerwick. The "Epitaph of the Twilight", seemed a plausible place to look for answers, but it was extremely hard to find any solid info on it except one verse that sounded somewhat helpful.

_The whole cannot be changed. _

_We have already lost that chance. _

_Because the time left to us was short, _

_We were mistaken in our path. _

_But now do we realize, _

_We should change not the whole, _

_But the parts. _

Elise had researched more into the epitaph, and had only found that the author Emma Weilant had disappeared, and now was presumed dead. There was also mention of a group of travelers that were tainted by the shadow and were cast out.

"I still can't make any sense of any of this, one there is so little information. Two, our sources seem limited by what we can get off of the BBS, and those are limited to rumors." Max muttered to himself. He continued to pace around in circles until his stomach started to grumble. At least if he was awake, he might as well go get something to eat. He changed his appearance, only clothing though, and walked out the door heading towards a nearby convenience store.

He tried to make sense of all of the info that they had uncovered. Could the Fairy Vanguard have been connected to the three travelers, the travelers descriptions seemed to match with their own. A witch that lived in a golden field, a banished fairy, and a very large misspoken man. Elise would be the fairy, since she was small, relied on her physical strength, but knew a lot about magic as well. Suzaku didn't speak much in game, but he was very large and physically strong. Valerie was definitely a witch in "The World's sense of the word, although the golden field was a stretch, although maybe it was the psyche of the character that could be called such.

Then there was the verse from the Epitaph of the Twilight, which seemed to refer to a great change that was attempted but failed. There were many possibilities that came from the verse. One that in order for them to turn back to normal they needed to change something. The "we" in the verse seemed to be trying to change a whole of something, and realized that it was nigh impossible. The "parts" are what needed to be changed. But does that mean that they wouldn't be able to change back at all.

Seriously lost in thought he entered the convenience store and proceeded in grabbing a few items from the shelves and walked up to the clerk. The clerk was a woman with an astounding and mysterious aura. She rang up the items, bagged them, and handed them back after he had payed. It was then that she looked up and her eyes widened. Max wasn't paying attention and was about to exit the store when she called out and started to talk.

"You are one of the chosen." She announced, almost to the entire store.

"Chosen for what?" he asked suspiciously.

"Chosen to search for the lost, and to have the first battle." The lady said.

"You mean you know why we changed?" he asked forcefully.

"You cannot change the whole, only the parts. Who you are will always remain." She said. "The travelers will be the key. May the twilight dragon guide you." After she finished talking she seemed to disappear and all that was left was a woman that was standing at the register looking like nothing had ever happened. He looked around in a circle, observing the other customers, none of them seemed to have taken notice of anything.

He walked out, even more confused then he had been. Now he knew that they were the travelers, but that still didn't explain anything else. He continued on his way back to the house, eating, and thinking about what had just happened.

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"Wake up sleepy head. You have class." A very chipper voice woke Max up. He had fallen asleep on the couch, had accomplished the very challenging feat of sleeping upside down. He quickly flipped off of the couch, and landed in behind Elise. He then got extremely dizzy, and ended up falling on her. After an awkward moment of silence, Elise started laughing, and Max had to join her.

"Well I have news." Valerie said.

"What?" Elise said as she pushed Valerie off, got up and walked into the kitchen.

"Either we aren't the only ones stuck in this predicament, or I'm starting to see things. I couldn't sleep last night, probably due to different time zones. Anyway, I went to the convenience store, and was almost assaulted by the clerk. She ended up catching my attention and ended up telling me that we were the chosen for a search and a great battle. The next thing I knew, the clerk completely changed appearance and looked extremely bored. None of the customers saw it either." Valerie said, walking after Elise.

"Hum, that does seem to confirm a few things. We will have to keep it mind. That is if it wasn't just a dream." Elise pronounced.

"I'm pretty sure it wasn't a dream." Valerie said sullenly.

"Alright. How about some breakfast before you need to go to class." Elise replied.

"How am I supposed to concentrate on class with all of this going on?" Valerie asked. "It takes more concentration than you think to be able to make the bloody illusion, that and I want to help find answers. If there is a battle coming, wouldn't it be best if we all staid together. I just can't help but think that going to classes isn't a good idea." Valerie said forcefully.

"Relax, I set it up so you just have to take online coursed, with tutoring from me. You don't have a problem with me going ahead and changing your major?" Elise said, her voice floating out from behind the refrigerator door.

"You changed my major?" Valerie asked, perplexed.

"Yeah, didn't make sense to me, you already know English why specialize in it." Elise said.

"Not how it works. What major am I now?" Valerie asked, sounding even more confused.

"Linguistics." Elise replied.

"So I study languages now.?" Valerie asked.

"Partly, that and what make them work. You just have a Japanese/English emphasis." Elise said joyfully.

"Why are you enjoying this?" Valerie asked.

"Well, I never had a student under the same emphasis that I specialize in." Elise said happily.

"Sounds good. That probably means I'm your assistant, and you pay me through tutoring." Valerie asked.

"That would be correct." Elise sang.

"Figures." Valerie sighed. She sat back down on the couch, wondering how this would affect her future.

"I looked through your bags and noticed that you didn't bring any clothes with you." Elise asked.

"Didn't have any that would fit. So I've been relying on an illusion to suffice." Valerie said.

"Wait, really! You're now a girl and you don't have any clothes. This is a tragedy." Elise said, dropping what she was doing and rushing over to Valerie.

"We must remedy this." She grabbed Valerie's arm and started to drag her out of the house.

"Eh." Valerie could only get one word in before Elise was dragging her out of the house and down the street at full speed. They hopped on the train, and wound their way over to one of Elise's favorite department stores. Valerie had a hard time keeping up with most of what she said though, because she started talking faster than Valerie could make sense of.

Once they reached the department store, Elise measured out Valerie's size, and then practically pranced around the store grabbing more and more outfits for her to try on.

"You've been giddy all morning long. I'm a little confused." Valerie said as Elise was looking at another outfit for her to try.

"I don't get to go do this very often. Its fun, isn't it." Elise admitted.

"I have yet to see the fun. Why not just get a few and go back home." Valerie asked.

"Take that back. It is my duty as your friend to save you from yourself. Any self respecting female would do the same. You need to understand that wearing the same thing every day is a no-no." Elise pronounced. Picking up all of her choices, and pushing Valerie towards the dressing room.

"O-ok." Valerie said. She let herself get pushed into the dressing room. She looked at herself in the mirror for a second, wondering what had gotten into Elise. She was still staring at it when a wall of clothes appeared over the divider and dropped on top of her. She tried to hold up the clothes, but when another bunch of clothes flew over, the surprise made her drop to the ground.

"We're not leaving this store until you have tried out each and every one of those outfits'." Elise said, popping her head over the divider.

"Alright." Valerie said, dropping the illusion she had cast on herself, and proceeding to take the wavemaster outfit off. She picked up one of the outfits by random and started to put it on.

"I've been wondering about something for a little while." Elise said.

"What have you been wondering about?" Valerie asked.

"Why did you decide to play a female character in the first place?" Elise asked.

"I'm not entirely sure at the moment. When I started playing it was a male character, but I lost interest too fast. Then I made a new character, this time female, and it was a more enjoyable experience. I think partly because I didn't like staring at a man's backside for an extended period of time." Valerie said.

"Hum, ok." Elise asked.

"At first it was just plain curiosity, then it was about fooling everybody else. A female character was probably the farthest thing from everyone's minds when they saw me. I wanted to be someone completely different, and let myself loose. Then as I played more and more, I became more attached to the persona. I ended up having split persona, two people one body although we both have the same thoughts. We just look at them very differently." Valerie said.

"I could see that being a problem." Elise said.

"It wasn't, but now that I've turned into my character I don't know." Valerie said, as she finally got the outfit on. She stepped out, and Elise oohed and ahhed for a second, and then sent her back in to try on the next combination.

"What made you start playing "The World"? Valerie asked.

"I wanted control over something. I've been extremely sheltered my whole life, especially after my father was killed." Elise said sadly.

"Is that why you were scared before?" Valerie asked softly.

"Yes." Elise replied.

"I see." Valerie replied. She got done with the next outfit and stepped outside. Elise looked at it for a minute, and then an evil smile crept across her face.

"You don't have a bra on under there do you?" Elise asked.

"I'm not, and I'm not going to." Valerie said.

"Yes you are. Good thing this department store has a Lingerie section." Elise said as she grabbed Valerie and carried her across the store to the Lingerie section.

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Suzaku had met up with them on their way back to Elise's house. They had stopped at an ice cream parlor, and were busy talking about various things.

"It's good that we have some information to work with." Suzaku said. He had happened to be near by, and Valerie had gotten a hold with him through the com link.

"That it is." Valerie said. Happily stuffing another large bite of ice cream into her mouth.

"I wonder what kind of battle we will be facing?" Elise pondered.

"You have a point, anything that could give us info could seriously help us." Suzaku said.

"If we are the three travelers, won't we have to face this "Cubia" thing?" Valerie asked.

"It's a possibility, but so far we don't have any info at all about anything with that name. It isn't in any of the blogs, official material, or forums." Suzaku replied.

"Did these sources have anything more on the Epitaph?" Elise asked.

"None that I could come up with. Though there was a team that beat the "One Sin" event." Suzaku said.

"The "One Sin"?" Valerie asked.

"It's that dragon that we faced when we went searching around the area we fought that dragon during the tournament. Apparently the winners were ticked because the treasure had mysteriously disappeared." Suzaku replied.

"Must have been that huge crystal." Elise said.

"Have you been playing "The World"?" Valerie asked.

"No. Actually there isn't any data on my account anymore, it's like my character was never there."

"Same here." Elise added. "I'm surprised you haven't tried to get back on yourself."

"I never had the time, I was too busy practicing with my new abilities." Valerie said.

"How were you able to do that?" Suzaku asked.

"Where I'm from, there is more wilderness, then there is city. I found a hill around where I lived, hiked up to the top and practiced."

"That's actually a really good idea, especially if there is a chance that we may end up having to battle something." Elise said.

'Where would we go?" Suzaku asked.

"Probably the mountains, definitely not Fuji though, too high profile." Elise said.

"Don't ask me, I wouldn't even know where to start. I could take care of a high profile situation by making us all invisible, and blocking sound." Valerie commented as she finished off her ice cream. She looked down forlornly at the bowl, seriously thinking about getting another one.

"How would we practice if we can't see what we are doing?" Suzaku asked.

"I could just put a field around us that reflected the ground before we entered it." Valerie replied. She got up and walked over to the counter to ask for more ice cream. When she got back Elise was giving her a pointed look.

"You're going to get fat." Elise said.

"Am not." Valerie argued.

"Too much Ice Cream will do that." Suzaku said.

"I'll work it off later, casting takes energy from a variety of different sources." Valerie pouted. She sat down and started to work on her ice cream.

"I think I know of a good spot, we will have to got tomorrow though, it's getting a little late." Elise said as she reached out with her spoon to skype a little of Valerie's ice cream.

"Who's the one who's going to get fat." Valerie stated.

"This body has years before it gets fat." Elise said gesturing to her child like body.

"Just keep telling yourself that." Valerie and Suzaku said together.

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The train system had continued to utterly confuse Max. They had hopped off and on at least 4 different trains, and Suzaku and Elise had taken it all in stride. They either knew exactly where they were, or they were extremely fool hardy.

"How come we didn't take your Jeep?" Valerie asked.

"Takes too much gas, I still can't understand why I bought the dumb thing." Elise replied.

"Yeah, I guess your right. A jeep in the city isn't the best idea." Valerie conceded.

"Would have made the hike shorter though." Suzaku muttered.

"Oh come on, we both know you want to seriously try out that new physique of yours." Elise said.

"Yes I do. I could beat the land speed record with my big masculine legs." Suzaku commented.

"You would need salt flats for that, and some seriously streamlined armor." Valerie said.

"I could probably make one, since my blacksmithing skill is kind of high." Suzaku replied.

"How would skills like that carry over. Don't you need knowledge of how to do it as well." Valerie asked.

"Doesn't seem to matter to terribly much. I could hardly cook before the incident, and now everything I throw together tastes great." Elise replied.

"You seriously spent skill points on cooking?" Suzaku asked.

"Yes actually. Although I never did think it would be this useful." Elise replied.

"That would explain why electricity and light waves are so easy for me to manipulate, since most of my magic skills are in those areas." Valerie said.

"Wouldn't you need skill in wind magic too?" Suzaku asked.

"My wind skill is pretty high, but not nearly as high as my other two basics." Valerie replied. The train stopped, and they all hopped off and started walking away from it.

"Where exactly are we going?" Valerie asked.

"I know of a secluded clearing in the forest up here. I thought it would be a great place since people don't go into that forest very often." Elise replied.

"Why wouldn't they?" Valerie asked.

"It's probably haunted since it's a popular suicide spot." Elise's reply sent shivers up Valerie's spine.

"A…A….Are you sure about this?" Valerie stuttered.

"It's the best place for it, Suzaku and I need to practice." Elise responded. "Not afraid of ghost's are you."

"No, I am not. I just find places like that creepy." Valerie replied. She had stopped momentarily to look at something in the window of a shop when a large crash sounded behind them. She looked back and saw a large object had crash landed a block back. At first it just looked like a giant ball, and then it unfurled and a bunch of large tendrils stretched up into the sky, while a large grotesque head appeared. This thing was big, ugly, and was starting to become very destructive.

"This is one way to practice." Elise said, as Valerie dropped the illusions that she had been holding to keep the team inconspicuous on the train. She pulled out her favorite staff and started to chant. The words came to her automatically and each one of them intensified her focus on the waves that were gathering around the end of her staff. She shouted out the final words as she swung the staff towards the monster. A bright arc of lightning shot out from the staff, making contact with the creature. The creature's head reared back, momentarily looking stunned, and then set it's eyes on the insignificant looking speck that had dared to attack it. It let loose a high pitched and wave induced shriek that broke every window within range. Valerie had luckily been able to deflect most of the sound damage with a barrier, but her ears were still ringing badly from the sound.

"We need to drive this thing off quickly before it gets any ideas about attacking the populace." Elise shouted. She had started to run towards the monster as soon as Valerie's barrier had disappeared. She got as close as she could before she landed a blow directly to the creatures side. Her blade barely nicked the surface and bounced off, and she had to dodge out of the way from one of the tendrils that shot towards her. One got too close and almost got her, but Suzaku showed up at the last second and hacked the tendril to pieces.

Meanwhile Valerie had been keeping the head of the thing occupied by hitting it with her fastest wind spells, although they seemed to have no effect other than infuriating it. It reeled its head back after a particularly effective barrage, opened its mouth and started to charge energy. It unleashed a salvo of fireballs that homed in on each one of the team members. Valerie countered with a couple blasts of light that caused the fireballs to implode.

Elise dodged another attack from the tendrils, and Suzaku met it head on as it switched directions toward him. His attack split it up the middle, stunning it long enough for Elise to get in close enough to cut it off at its root. Though they had been busy with the Tendrils for a while, they had still not been able to thin down their numbers very much. As soon as one was defeated another would attack, although they would only attack one at a time. This time the Tendril attacked from above taking Elise by surprise, she jumped back avoiding its attack. The tendril drove into the ground throwing up dust and asphalt as it recoiled off the hard surface. Suzaku met it as it rose up from the ground, delivering a strong special attack to the center of the tendril.

"Is there any reason why they always attack you first." Suzaku panted. Turning to chop at the next tendril that made a run by him.

"Can't figure that out either." Elise admitted. "At least the tendrils are all we have to worry about, the head's attacks would have killed both of us easily. Valerie is the one with the biggest hassle." This much was true, once the large head had realized that it's biggest problem was Valerie, it had made the destruction of her its highest priority.

Valerie had been able to use an empty park as her casting field. All of the attacks that she either deflected or caused to implode causing damage to the surrounding area. Her manna was holding at just the right level, and she cast spells at a pace that allowed her manna to recover. She and the creature were trading attacks, although his were a lot more powerful than hers. The seemed to only consist of only fireballs, and an arc of energy that had brought down a couple of department stores.

Although keeping it occupied had been the best option overall. The tendrils didn't grow back, and Elise and Suzaku had been busy cutting down each and every one of them. As they finally took out the last one, the creature roared at the sky obviously pissed off. Elise and Suzaku backed away from it, wondering what they were going to do now.

Valerie decided that now was the time to attack it full force. She gathered all of her manna together, putting it through her charm and let loose a blast of lightning that rivaled a meteor strike right at the beast. It was too busy roaring in anger to notice the attack until it was too late. The blast struck it full force releasing electric currents across its whole body. The side of it's face and a large jagged line down it's neck and front ruptured from the heat, letting loose a steaming oozed that dropped to ground and sizzled into the asphalt. This time it's scream was louder, and sounder much more desperate, it moved backwards, away from the pain.

Elise and Suzaku took full of advantage of the creature's lapse of pain to full advantage. After backing away from the creature far enough to not get shocked or oozed upon, Suzaku grabbed a hold of Elise spun her around a few times and launched unceremoniously at the creature's rearing head. Elise was taken by surprise and started swearing as soon as she left Suzaku's grasp. She flew quickly towards the things head, and she had to gain control of her flight by using her sword as a wing and started to call power to her blade. Just as she was arcing over the injured side of the creature's neck she yelled "Rai Smash" and used all of her available force to put a large gash in the side of the creature's neck. She continued flying until she defenestrated into the 17th floor of a building a couple of blocks away.

The creature let out another pained roar and then turned tail and ran. After running for a few blocks it jumped up and flew away extremely fast. Valerie watched this, and then dropped to the ground exhausted, finally feeling the effects of using too much manna at once. Suzaku ran over to her and sat down next to her.

"Did that count as practice?" he asked.

"I'm pretty sure it did." She responded. "Shouldn't you be going and checking on Elise?"

"Hmm, Probably. Although I don't think that a window and a couple of desks could cause her any serious harm, she does have the highest recovery rate of any of us." Suzaku said.

"Yeah, you're probably going to get hurt for pulling that stunt," she said.

"Why would she hurt me?" Suzaku asked innocently.

"You hurt her a little when you released her from swinging her around. I heard her from way back here." Valerie replied.

"Oh." That was all he got out before Elise came barreling down the street, jumped up and planted both of her feet into his face.

"Don't ever do that again before warning me. I nearly died from a heart attack." Elise said angrily.

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Max sighed again, looking down at the phone he had just recently received from Elise. The news couldn't quite decide what had happened with the whole creature incident that had happened. He still wasn't sure about it himself, he was just glad that it hadn't ended too badly, at least no one had been killed. While the news didn't know what to do with it, YouTube had exploded from the videos that had been posted. It was just a relief that the team was hardly recognizable on any of the videos, although Max had his suspicions that Suzaku had been behind that. The team had been almost instantly dubbed as real life super heroes, with suggestions for names coming from everywhere. There had been suggestions in almost every language imaginable.

He looked out the window, wondering why he needed to stay in this coffee shop for so long. Elise had told him that in order to get truly better at the language, he needed to get out and meet new people.

So he had gone to the place that Elise had picked. A coffee shop that was down the street. He had gone in and ordered a cake, and a cup of hot chocolate. Ignoring the odd looks he was given about the hot chocolate he sat down at a table near the window and watched people pass outside.

When his order came up, he went over to the counter and picked them up and wandered back over to the table. Just as he sat down, a young fellow dropped into the opposite chair with a tray filled with a wide variety of cakes. He was busy talking on the phone and staring at the T.V that was behind him.

Max politely waited for him to finish talking on the phone, taking leisurely bites of cake and watching the people pass by. The fellow finally hung up the phone, and turned around to concentrate on his food. His eyes flicked over his cakes, and then up to see Valerie sitting there across from him.

"Um, hello." He said tentatively. Valerie turned to face him and waved at him with a smile. She tried to start eating the cake in her mouth faster, but she knew it would take a little while to finish.

"Were you here before I sat down?" He asked. Valerie nodded in the affirmative.

"I should probably go then." He said, trying to get up. Valerie shook her head and motioned for him to sit back down.

"Alright, so what's your name?" he asked. Valerie moaned and waved her hands around, trying to tell him that her mouth was full.

"Oh, well my name is Tatsukichi Aizawa. It is very nice to meet you. Do you come her often?" he asked. Valerie mentally sighed, still trying unsuccessfully to swallow the cake. She shook her head, and held up one of her fingers to explain that this was her first time here.

"Hmm, that cake you chose is very good." He commented, pointing at her cake. "It's only problem is that it's batter was originally very thick, and the deep velvet sauce only makes it worse." Valerie hung her head, her luck had demanded this cake. She finally swallowed the piece, and looked up and responded.

"Sorry about that. My name is Wakui Valerie." She said, sounding a little flustered.

"Don't sweat it, it's happened multiple times to me before. Try swallowing it when you're talking to your boss." He laughed.

"What's with all the cakes?" Valerie asked. He looked down, and back up with an evil smile on his face.

"Cakes give me the power of super heroes. If I don't eat a dozen of them every day, I will become a weak and normal human."

"Sure they do. What's your superpower?" Valerie asked, taking a sip of her hot chocolate.

"I can walk through walls." He said proudly.

"Prove it." Valerie responded.

"I have to eat all of the cake first, I haven't eaten any today." He responded, deflating just a little.

"By all means go ahead." She smirked and turned back to watching people out the window. After a few bites of his cakes, he turned back towards the TV and watched as a new story started on the news program.

"Hey there's my story on those superheroes from the other day." He said happily, turning around to see that Valerie hadn't stopped looking out of the window.

"Your story, so you're a reporter?" Valerie asked, still staring out the window.

"I wish, I'm a writer that works for the news network that's on. I just write what the newscasters say." He said, looking back over his shoulder, whispering the words to himself just before they appeared on screen.

"Did they uncover anything new on them?" Valerie asked. She had turned her interest to the T.V, wondering if they had somehow gotten a better view of the team.

"Not really, this is just the first broadcast to come out with all of the facts that we know. I wish we knew more." Aizawa said, sighing over his cakes as he turned around.

"What would you ask them?" Valerie asked cautiously, looking from the T.V to Aizawa.

"Their origin story of course, what influenced their costumes? What was that big creature? Will it attack again?" He said nonchalantly, turning back to his cake.

"Sounds good. Do you have a plan to talk to these heroes?" Valerie asked. She was slightly worried that he had figured her out, but wasn't entirely sure how to handle the situation if he did.

"I wish I did." He said, putting down his fork. "The only problem is that the videos available of the event concentrate more on the beast than the heroes." About as soon as he said this, his words were repeated almost exactly by the announcer on the T.V, Valerie snorted and chuckled at that.

"You could always try the internet. I'm sure there is some chat room or something that you could somehow get a hold of these heroes." Valerie said, after she had stopped chuckling.

"You may have a point. I'll have to work on that. Now back to my current project." He picked up his fork again, and started into his cakes, after a few bites he would pull out a notebook and write something down.

"Are you trying to figure out what cakes make your super powers activate faster?" Valerie asked after a minute or two of silence.

"Oh, I don't have a power. Just doing a piece for my food blog. Trying to find out which place in this area has the best cakes."

"How many places are there in the area that serve cakes?" Valerie asked.

"Twelve, I think. They all have their own specialty though, this is the only place that has a wide variety of cakes."

"This is the only cake I've had here but it's better than anything I've had in America. Although the cafes over there don't usually serve cake." Valerie said, voicing her own opinion, wondering if it will make into the article.

"Wait, they don't serve cake over in America?" He asked curiously.

"The will serve cake, but pie has a higher chance of being on a menu. Cake is usually reserved for birthdays and weddings." She said.

"Very interesting." He said, writing in his little notebook some more. "You'll definitely have to give me your opinions on some of my article topics."

"I'd be happy to help." Valerie responded happily.

"How about we set a date then?" He asked, looking up from his notebook.

"A date? Moving a little fast now aren't we?" Valerie accused.

"It's only that kind of date if you want it to be." He replied nonchalantly. "Why don't we just exchange numbers, and see where we go from there." Valerie nodded dumbly as he scribbled his number down on a page, ripped it off and handed it to her. She tore off a corner and wrote down her own.

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Once he was done at the coffee shop, Max walked out the door and started heading back towards Elise's place. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about the experience that he had just faced. Part of him was completely repulsed, utterly turned off at the idea of being hit on by a guy. Another part was curious and partially thrilled, with a bubbly feeling rising in his gut. There was absolutely no way that he was going to go out with a guy, positively no way. Yet, Aizawa had left him sincerely doubting his sincerity.

"I thought I had figured this out in game." Max muttered to himself. Acting was one thing, but his VG life and real life had flipped. Who was acting now? Was Max still Max, or was he becoming Valerie. Staring at the stars was not an easy solution.

Max rounded the corner of the street, walking with the crowd distractedly. His thoughts kept him from seeing the large man leaning against a wall until it was too late. The guy grabbed him, and succeeded in throwing him down a rather large gap between two buildings. Max got up dusted himself off, and glared the perpetrator.

"You screwed up. Big time." The man said venomously.

"Screwed what up?" Max asked. Taking the time to prepare for anything the man might try to do.

"Cubia should have been killed. Now the wave comes without impediment." He said, striding forward with authority.

"This news would have been appreciated before we took it on." Max shot back.

"You were warned, and had all the time in the world to get ready. You screwed up, that's all there is to say about it." He replied cockily.

"The convenience store clerk? The riddles she left were hardly substantial." Max said.

"What? How dare she? How dare she!" He fumed. "She knew that this couldn't be screwed up, now both are kingdoms are most likely screwed." He turned to the wall and punched it, easily sending his fist through the solid concrete wall.

"What was that thing?" Max asked, still on edge though a little curious about what the man was going on about

"Cubia is the core of all evil as we know it. It created the Wave that is now bearing down on us." He said, taking another chance to hit the wall causing the building to shake.

"If you had taken it out, the Wave would not be a problem now." He said, now glaring at Max.

"It would have helped if there were more info." Max said.

"It would have helped if you actually killed Cubia." The man retorted.

"Meh." Max responded, he was not impressed with this guy.

"What?" The man practically screamed out that word before he started yelling at him. "How dare you talk to me like that! Don't you know who I am."

"Nope." Max stated. The man deflated just a little bit before he placed a cocky sneer on his face.

"I am none other than Lyos sama, the one and only King of the Light." He said this as he imperiously stroked his short cut beard.

"Still not recognizing the name. Sorry." Max said. This guy was starting to creep him out, and there had to be a way to get away. Max started to casually look around, trying to locate a way out of the alleyway.

"Hmmph, I guess I will forgive you this time for your insolence. You only have one more chance before the wave begins. Use it wisely." The man seemed to fully deflate from his previous musings, and then he started looking around with a bewildered look on his face.

"What's going on?" He asked with a confused look on his face. He continued looking around until he looked up and noticed Max standing there. He got a cocky smirk on his face as he looked at her.

"I didn't know that you could make an avatar on the "World" that was so accurate." He said looking Max up and down.

"I'm sorry. How would you know that?" Max asked, a creeping suspicion coming over him.

"Heh, that battle we had before the servers crashed was legendary. People on the net are still going nuts over it. Too bad you pushed me too hard and forced me to resort to my back up measures. There was no way I was going to lose though, I had too much riding on it." He said cockily. It really was no surprise that he had been picked by Lyos, their personalities matched perfectly. The hacker had appeared in front of her in real life.

"What exactly were the measures that you used?" Max asked, tilting his head to add emphasis.

"Oh, I just used a hidden program I had found. It was actually extremely easy to activate, and it ended the match spectacularly. That and your magic nuke you released at the last second." He said. Max had heard enough, there was only one option left. She gathered a little of her power and released it on the man. He froze in spot, unable to move.

"Your "back up measures" did more than just make for great screenplay. They turned me and my friends into our game characters, and forced into the battle of a life time. You're the one who released Cubia into our world." Max was getting emotional and his voice got louder the farther into his tirade he got.

"You're coming with me." Max stated as he cast another couple of spells at the man. The first turned the guy invisible, and the second lifted him into the air to hover high enough above people that he wouldn't be noticed. Frustrated and mildly confused, there was only one place he needed to be at the moment and he couldn't get there fast enough.

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